Practice Teaching | Aug. 16, 08

August 16th, 2008 Practice Teaching

It is Saturday night and all I can say is that I am glad to finally have a night off! This last week has been incredibly busy. All of us participated in a ‘teaching practicum’ this week. Basically it gave us all a chance to begin to get comfortable with being in front of the classroom. Many of us have never taught before and here was our chance to get our feet wet.

The village that we are in for our training is the biggest of the three that everyone was sent to. Ours is also on the national highway and the closest to Phnom Penh. There are 11 of the 34 volunteers in this village.

Anyway, the way that Peace Corps set up the practicum was to ask the local high school to inform the community that there will be ‘native English’ speakers coming to town to teach English lessons for one week. (I guess it truly didn’t matter to the students that most of us had never taught before in our lives, or that several of us don’t feel that English grammar was our strongest subject; but all they cared about was that some Americans who knew how to speak English were going to give classes free of charge and if they had the opportunity to come; they’d do everything they could to make it happen.)

Anyhow, students who might be interested were to sign up on a first come first serve basis. It is summertime and classes are not in session; so they knew that when they asked for participation the turnout would be dedicated students who were really interested in being there and who wanted to practice their English.

When Peace Corps checked in with the high school director they found out that over 700 students signed up and wanted to participate. Obviously with 11 volunteers who were to teach one 45 minute class each could not do this. They narrowed down the number to around 300 students.

On Monday morning, Dan (the person I was sharing one 11th grade classroom with) and I walked into a room full of 62 students. Yes, 62. We knew class sizes were going to be large, but 62? Wow. Nonetheless all 62 stood up when we entered the room. I was amazed how they all even fit in the room. The desks have benches attached to the writing surface, and anywhere from 2 to 4 people shared one desk, just so they could all fit in. The students were dressed in their uniforms, which for the girls consisted of navy skirts, knee-length to floor length; the guys--nice slacks and everyone wore white or light blue button down shirts. Female teachers are to wear classic Khmer skirts (which consist of a really nice/actually really pretty fabric which wraps around and goes to the floor. Guys are to dress nicely as well, with button down shirts nice slacks, shirts tucked in and belts.

Do I need to reiterate how humid and warm it is here?

Needless to say I was a bit nervous. But in some respects it was almost easier teaching to such a large group. I thought I was going to be a little clammier that morning but actually was able to greet the group with a big smile and a warm hello.

The chapter we were teaching that day had to do with leisure. I started out with a warm up of hangman (they apparently LOVE that game here) and then discussed leisure activities and then had them get into groups and interview each other of what their favorite leisure activities were. After that I made a ‘newspaper’ drawing on some large pieces of paper and had them report to me what those activities were and then we listed the story in our made up newspaper.
Overall, it really went pretty well. I was easily able to fill up the 45 min. time slot and even had students ask a few questions.

But boy do I have a completely NEW respect for teachers anywhere. I felt like I had just ran 10 miles after teaching that class. It sure does take a lot of energy to keep everyone focused, entertained and to make sure that they understand what you’re talking about. I’m sure it’s different teaching something in the same language --- but still; I’ve found it is quite draining to teach a class. And this was just 1 class! 45 Min.! It’s not like we had to be up there all day.
So I did it. I taught a class. But there are soo many’ cultural differences that we all have to take into account; and I’m sure it’ll be a while before we truly get used to them. But even the simple classroom dynamics are so different here. Students are NOT accustomed to openly raising their hand to answer a question. After my first evaluation I was told to be sure to call on students directly, rather than ask an open ended question… otherwise you’ll feel like you’re losing momentum when all of a sudden NO ONE raises their hand and you hear crickets in the background. But I guess students here are used to having the teacher read directly from the book, never leave their podium and NEVER really ask for classroom participation.

Secondly, gender is a big deal here. I’ve already talked about how everything is a little more conservative here (i.e. girls cannot wear shorts that are above their knees, we do not bare our shoulders—people don’t really date here…if they are dating, or seen alone together it typically means they are engaged. Boys don’t touch girls, girls don’t touch boys; we’ve been instructed NOT to get too close in the classroom to students of the opposite sex etc.) Most of the girls sat at one side of the classroom and boys to the other. Anyway ~ I noticed even when I divided the students up into random groups, if there were only 2 girls in a group of 8, I noticed that the girls really didn’t contribute at all while the boys did most of the work. It’s not because they didn’t want to; but it’s more of a cultural thing. Girls just don’t interact with boys. They’re not supposed to, unless they’re planning to wed.

So yes, there will be a lot to learn and a lot of habits to break before we truly get into the groove of teaching; but I’m just proud I was able to do a whole week in front of a class size like that!
Will taught 10th graders, and actually our host brother was in his class. Originally Will’s assignment was supposed to be Youth Program Development; but at this point they’ve got everyone on the same agenda. He did a pretty good job too, although I know he’s anxious (as well as the other kids who were assigned Youth Programs) to find out exactly just how much teaching time they are expected to put in after we’re sworn in.

Hrmm. What else. A few other things to touch on; it did get easier as the week went on, and students became more comfortable with us as well. On Wednesday, I had one student (actually one of the more outgoing students in class) come up to me after class to let me know that he was really sorry, as he wasn’t able to come to class for the rest of the week. I said it was no problem, but he said he really, really wanted to be there, but he worked at the local factory – and the last few days he had been working nights Just so he could come and take these English classes. He apparently was unable to get the schedule switched for the remainder of the week and wanted to apologize, but thank me for having the class as he “really wants to become good at speaking English.” THEN he was kind enough to give me a book on Khmer culture as a gift. I took it graciously. I had another student give me an English Khmer dictionary, which too was a very useful book, and one of the girls had me write in her diary and I included a postcard from the states as a gift to her.

Anyways- practice teaching was very good for all of us; but it definitely proved a VERY busy week – and I am soo glad to have tomorrow off.